Anthropic PBC turned to lawyers from a firm also targeted by the Trump administration to sue the Defense Department over its decision to blacklist the artificial intelligence giant.
The company, represented by lawyers from WilmerHale, accused the department of retaliating against Anthropic after it tried to limit how its AI tools are used on battlefields and for surveillance.
“Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation,” the company said in the complaint.
WilmerHale was among the law firms that President Donald Trump hit with executive orders last year. The lawyers representing Anthropic cited federal court rulings striking down orders punishing other law firms last year in support of the company’s claims that the administration is violating its constitutional rights.
The suit, filed Monday in a federal court in California, challenges the Defense Department’s decision to declare that Anthropic poses a threat to the US supply chain. The company asked a judge to block the Pentagon’s move to steer AI work to OpenAI and other rivals based on the risk designation.
The WilmerHale team representing Anthropic includes Kelly Dunbar, who leads the firm’s administrative law group. Michael Mongan, the former solicitor general of California who joined the firm’s San Francisco office in October, is also on the case. The firm did not immediately return a request for comment about the suit on Monday.
WilmerHale was one of five firms that Trump hit with executive orders last year, threatening their security clearances, access to federal buildings, and government contracts held by clients. Four of the firms—WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey—challenged the orders in court and won rulings blocking them from going into effect. The Trump administration is currently appealing those decisions, arguing that the courts are interfering with the president’s authority to address national security and other risks.
‘Punitive Actions’
Anthropic said Monday that executive branch agencies under Trump retaliated against the company for refusing to allow the Defense Department to use its artificial intelligence models for autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance of Americans—uses that defy the company’s principles.
Anthropic’s suit cites federal court decisions striking down Trump’s orders against Jenner & Block and Perkins Coie. The president in those orders—and the order against WilmerHale—claimed the firms posed threats to national security and weaponized the legal system.
The invocation of those rulings shows how lawyers are using the decisions to challenge the Trump administration over other allegedly unconstitutional acts. Anthropic’s suit alleges that the department violated the company’s free speech and due process rights by abruptly declaring it a risk and moving work elsewhere.
“Actions designed to punish ideological disagreement are necessarily motivated by protected First Amendment activity,” lawyers for Anthropic wrote in the complaint, citing the decision blocking Trump’s order against Perkins Coie. “The government took these punitive actions ‘without providing the ‘core requirements’ of due process: adequate notice and a meaningful hearing,’” they added, quoting the decision blocking Trump’s order against Jenner & Block.
Roy Strom contributed to this report.
The case is Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War, N.D. Cal., 3:26-cv-01996, 3/9/26
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